


Track My Moves

by summerstorm



Category: Leverage
Genre: Character of Color, Dark Agenda Challenge, Multi, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Parker doesn't trust Tara, and Eliot and Hardison indulge her whims.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Track My Moves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Steph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steph/gifts).



> Thank you - to CJ for brainstorming help, athenejen and kristin for beta, and Annemari for holding my hand through all of this even though she didn't even know the fandom. This really wouldn't have happened and/or I would have driven myself insane without them. Title from 'Assassin' by John Mayer.

1.

Tara being around so much of the time is kind of scary.

Parker likes her—really, she does. In theory, anyway. Sophie likes her, so she can't be all bad. But there's nothing maternal or even plain old reassuring about her, and for all that Sophie sometimes is just not good at certain things, Parker trusts her to have their best interests in mind, not just her own. Tara's general attitude makes Parker wonder things like whether Sophie's talent as a grifter translates in any way into an ability to recognize other grifters—if Tara is deceiving them, Parker is never going to forgive Sophie. At least not for a little while. A little while that becomes longer in Parker's imagination the higher the heels Tara's wearing at any given time. Tara's stilettos make Parker feel certain Tara could make anybody bleed into an amnesiac state if they stepped out of line, or if she simply decided they'd done something she didn't like.

So Parker doesn't trust Tara, and nobody else shows any signs of doing so either. With Nate spending most of his time either moping and whining or planning their missions like they're playing with Legos instead of committing a crime, she can't rely on his lack of concern as a sort of instinctive confirmation that they shouldn't kill Tara and throw her body in a ditch. 

The whole thing is just really throwing Parker off.

It takes a lot to throw Parker off.

"I don't trust her," Parker says. She and Eliot are having breakfast in Nate's kitchen at eight in the evening, which is, in Parker's opinion, the best time to have breakfast.

"If she's lying to us," Eliot says, and lets a long pause hang between them, pouring himself a cup of coffee and drinking half of it in one gulp, "I can turn those stilettos on their heels."

"But what if she wants you to think you can so she can turn those stilettos you turned on their heels on _their_ heels?" Her voice lowers as she hears footsteps approaching, and when she looks around she finds herself faced with Tara's permanently raised eyebrows and amused smile.

"So, this coffee," she says, "is it at all decent?" She answers her own question by taking a long sip, savoring it, then spitting it into the sink.

Parker has a sneaking suspicion Tara's only pretending to be honest about the coffee to get on her good side.

"So, don't get used to this," Eliot says, minutes after Tara's gone. Parker waits for him to continue. "A couple of months ago, this bar I used to stop by sometimes got trashed by a bunch of idiots, their insurance refused to pay for it, they're about to close down. They're going to trial, but their lawyer has cashed a few checks from the insurance company recently, and me and Hardison thought we could probably lend a hand. You want in?"

"How in?"

"It's not really complicated, but I could use someone to sneak into the guy's office and steal some files so we don't have to make up the entire defense."

Parker's always up for a job, but she doesn't do eagerness. Unless there's money involved, because everyone's eager in the face of money. "What's in it for me?

Eliot snorts. "You steal stuff, you have fun, it takes your mind off Sophie. And I'm sure Hardison can hack into his bank account if you—"

"Deal," Parker says.

*

Their planning without Nate in charge is, well, pretty damned poor, though Eliot's not about to admit that out loud. Their mark anticipates Parker coming, Hardison does wind up standing before the judge with no evidence whatsoever to draw from, and Eliot spends over thirty minutes torn between listening to Hardison bullshit his way through a minor trial or acknowledging Parker's completely matter-of-fact comments about how—hot or whatever Hardison sounds when he's freaking out and lying and acting like he's having fun all at the same time.

Both things make Eliot want to bang his head against the wall until there are no more brain cells functional enough to register the pain.

And to make matters worse, Eliot has to back out of a fight he's not actually confident he could have won by ducking into the taxi Hardison and Parker stole when Hardison realized Eliot might need _help_. 

"We're not talking about this," Eliot grunts. Hardison throws his hands up like he didn't say a word. Which he didn't, but Eliot knows he wanted to. "_Eyes on the road_," Eliot snaps.

   
*  
 

2.

Parker really, really doesn't trust Tara.

This affects Eliot in ways he hadn't thought possible. 

"Hey, man," Hardison says from his couch, "did you just get a semi-nude picture of Parker on your phone?"

Eliot drags his gaze away from the TV to look at his phone and yes, there's Parker in a dressing room wearing bright turquoise lingerie and making a peace sign. "'Tara says this looks good,'" he reads. "'Please confirm or deny ASAP.'"

"I vote she gets the same thing in teal," Hardison says. "Or moss green."

"I don't think that color exists in real life," Eliot points out. "And I don't think I'm comfortable knowing your women's underwear preferences."

"I can hear you guys," a voice says through Hardison's phone, and Hardison hisses like he didn't know it was on. "And you're right, green looks good."

"You're not good at the feigning innocence thing," Eliot tells Hardison, and Hardison shrugs and raises an eyebrow in—defeat, except he somehow makes it look smug and irritating.

Two minutes later, Parker sends them both a picture of herself in a different dressing room wearing a slightly more revealing and significantly more green bra and holding two thumbs up.

"See?" Hardison says.

Eliot grabs the remote, leans back and turns up the sound.

*

To be honest, and Parker's not so much honest as blunt, Parker only goes shopping with Tara because Sophie suggested she should before they had to work together again. A few days later, while Nate's laying out the details of their next con, Parker gets caught up in thinking about how trying on lingerie Tara picked out for her didn't help at all, and she comes up with a better idea.

Eliot says she should probably suspect something's up before she goes around spying on supposed allies, which she thinks is totally unnecessary, but whatever, because eight hours later she goes over the security footage of Tara faking a job interview with their mark and she notices Tara slipped something into his pocket, and there was no mention of anybody having to slip anything into anyone else's anywhere, so she offers Eliot a legit reason to do this and doesn't even have to make it up.

After a lot of whining and convincing, Hardison agrees to set the intercom up so that Parker and Eliot can hear Hardison and Tara and Nate, but only Hardison can hear _them_. They're not supposed to work on this con until Tara's done her part, and Parker needs some proof they're not getting played by their substitute grifter.

They're in the middle of their mini inside con, going through files in Mark Kirchner's office while Tara's a couple of floors down sweet-talking him into making a deal with her fake catering company, when Hardison sucks in a breath—a really, _really_ loud breath. 

"What the hell," Eliot mutters.

"What?" she hears Tara say.

"I think there may be somebody in that room," Hardison says. He makes it sound like Tara's about to be faced with the Loch Ness monster. Parker makes a note of it, and focuses on more pressing matters, like how Tara appears to be standing outside Mark Kirchner's office _right now_.

"It's okay," Tara says defiantly, "I can take them down."

"No!" Hardison squeals over the intercom. That's really not so dignified.

"Why not?" Tara says. The tone of her voice reminds Parker of all those grown-ups in her childhood questioning her advice on how they really needed to evacuate the premises if they didn't want to get blown up. 

She hopes Tara hasn't set a giant bomb. She wouldn't do that, would she?

"I don't think you need to worry," Eliot mumbles.

"The door you're standing next to, security scan," Hardison tells Tara over the intercom. "I set it in motion. Oops," he adds, voice laced with sarcasm, "sorry."

"I thought you people were professionals," Tara mutters, but stays put.

Hardison huffs. "Uh, that's why I told you to stop right where you are, ma'am."

"M—" Tara begins, but gives up before she's even started.

Parker nods, pulls out her climbing equipment and hands it to Eliot. "You put this on," she orders, "I hold onto you, we jump out the window."

"I'm not getting myself killed over a stupid plan," Eliot says. 

"You're not getting yourself killed," Parker says. "It's not getting yourself killed if it's an accident." The blood drains from Eliot's face. "I did this with Sophie," she remarks. She hopes he's aware this is her way of calling him a coward.

"Fine," he says. 

They make it out alive, and are informed the next day of what exactly was going on with Tara's arm in the security footage Parker scanned.

Eliot says he's pretty sure Tara knew what was going on, but Parker's stealthy, and Nate never says anything about it to her, so she's confident Tara never found out.

   
*  
 

3.

"Does she have, like, martial arts training?" Parker asks over the phone. "Why does she always look like she's ready to throw a punch?"

"Sweetheart, if you keep bothering me with questions I've already insisted you can ask Tara instead of me, I'm going to be forced to cut you off," Sophie says sweetly. Vindictively. They sound the same to Parker.

"Has she ever punched you?" Parker goes on. Sophie laughs, half amused, half exasperated. Parker ignores her. It's not like she's being suspicious of Tara anymore. She's just trying to get to know Tara. Through somebody Parker trusts to tell her the truth.

"Now, Parker," Sophie says, "I'm sure if you ask her she will be thrilled to tell you all about her adventures. She likes you, honestly, she does, and I love, just love that you need me so much but it's really getting tiresome. You need to fend for yourself for a little while, all right? I will be back in no time at all."

"I don't see you here," Parker says, looking around.

"No time as in soon," Sophie sighs. "If you get to know Tara you might actually forget I'm not there anymore."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"I would assume that's—for you to find out," Sophie suggests.

Except, after three hours, Parker doesn't even know how to start searching. Is she supposed to invite Tara to pull a bank job? Or should they just, like, go to a spa together or something? Sophie liked spas.

She calls Sophie to ask for further instructions, but the phone says, "We're sorry, the number you're calling does not exist—"

"Sophie?" she asks. "Is that you?"

Eliot laughs from the living room. 

"What's funny?" she asks, walking over there and dropping onto the couch.

"You broke through Sophie's patience threshold," Eliot says. Parker frowns.

"I didn't even think that was possible," Hardison adds unhelpfully.

"Well," Parker says, "can you fix this?"

Hardison gets a glint in his eye like he wants to say no but can't resist her, and then he shakes her head and says, "Sure. But don't tell Sophie it was me."

He pulls up a bunch of websites on his laptop so fast Parker can't even keep track of them, and five minutes later he walks over and back after grabbing something from the printer, and says, "Now, don't say I never gave you anything."

"Why would I say that?" Parker asks, and Eliot laughs.

Hardison's holding a print-out of Sophie's phone number change, somehow officially justified on the phone company records as 'you couldn't even wait a fortnight could you.' "There. Don't abuse it."

Parker nods solemnly. How do you abuse a phone number anyway? That's not actually possible.

   
*  
 

4.

Eliot and Parker are standing guard in the park across the street from their mark's mistress's apartment building when Parker says, "Wouldn't it be fair turnabout if we, like, did something in return?"

Eliot frowns and lowers his sunglasses. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Parker makes a weird gesture with her jaw. Eliot thinks it means she's not really happy about the thought she's had, which in turn makes Eliot feel a lot more inclined to indulge her. Funny how that works. "Hardison's done a lot of things for us lately," she explains. "Like, things he wasn't supposed to? And things he wasn't get paid or anything to do."

"Pretty sure retrieving Sophie's new phone number barely required any effort on his part," Eliot says. "If I had to guess, I'd say it was a lot more exhausting for Sophie to make it that easy."

She hits his thigh with her palm, and he raises an eyebrow. "He kept Tara out of that office when we followed her."

"Also your fault," Eliot reminds her.

"And there was the thing where he saved you from those hooligans," Parker adds.

"They were trained killers," Eliot mutters.

"So, the point is," Parker says, beginning to grin brightly, "I think you need to get yourself kidnapped."

Eliot just stares at her, hoping she'll understand that this is another one of those things she comes up with that wouldn't fly through anyone else's mind, not even the many other crazy ones in the world. There's a long silence, though, so Eliot feels obligated to spell it out. "Why?"

"Because we have to thank him somehow. It's the right thing to do."

Eliot leans back on the bench and shakes his head. "Since when do you care about doing the right thing?"

Parker blinks. "It's... doing right by each other. On the team. That seems like something they'd teach you in school, right?"

There's no emotion, positive or negative, in her words, and Eliot wonders if she just blurted that out for no reason or if she's actually trying to manipulate him. Either way, he doesn't like it, and either way, it's kind of sad. 

"And anyway, I don't want to be obvious about it. If you get kidnapped, then he can save us and we can thank him without being all, 'thank you, Hardison, for all the work you've done for us.' Ugh." She scrunches up her nose, and Eliot smiles despite himself.

Eliot squints in concentration. "I'm not saying I'm agreeing to this," he clarifies, "but why would it have to be me?"

Parker frowns like it's the most inane question she's ever heard. "Because I never get caught," she says matter-of-factly.

"And I never _stay_ caught," Eliot points out, tilting his head meaningfully.

"Hmm. Maybe if you're drugged."

"I'm not overdosing because you suddenly grew morals, Parker."

"Do you want to get him laid this century or not?"

Eliot snorts. "You want to thank him by having sex with him? Are you nuts?" Which is a stupid question, given who he's talking to, but it never hurts to remind Parker her ideas are not always on the sane side.

"Why not? It's efficient, discreet, enjoyable for all parties involved and will distract Hardison from, like, gloating." She grimaces at the thought. "Think of it as a scheme. And I know we've all thought about this, so don't even try to lie."

Eliot may gape at that. In a manly way. "Fine. But I'm not doing this without a plan."

"Deal," Parker says. 

Unexpectedly, their plan fits their next con like a glove.

   
*  
 

5.

Much as Hardison enjoys spending time with Parker, being stuck in a supply closet while they wait for Eliot to take down a bunch of guys so that they can get into their conference room and steal things is not his idea of fun. Parker's in charge of physical evidence, and Hardison could hack into their system from the comfort of his own apartment, but Parker looked at him all wide-eyed and we-need-you-for-moral-support and like, who can say no to Parker, right? He's only human.

 

"Remember, go easy on those guys," Parker says.

"My self-respect hates you," Eliot mutters into the com.

"What the fuck," Hardison says. Parker puts a finger over his mouth to shut him up. "I can talk around your finger."

"Shh," she tries instead. 

There's a loud bang followed by something like a water cooler being knocked down and then Eliot says, "This isn't working."

"You knocked a bunch of people out and remain alive," Hardison says, "that sounds like working to me."

"Yeah, I'm not gonna need any help," Eliot says. He doesn't sound exactly happy about this, and he doesn't sound like he's talking to Hardison at all. Hardison's starting to freak out that maybe Eliot and Parker are doppelgängers and he's stuck with them and this is his last day on earth and oh god, he never got around to hacking into Moffat's computer and now he's never going to know if the new Doctor sucks or—

"Okay, we're clear," Parker says, adjusting her voice to work work work. Hardison thinks he liked the finger in his mouth better.

Maybe karma's at work here or something, though—they get into the room without any trouble at all, security hasn't registered anything, the entire floor is deserted, and before Eliot gets there, Hardison says, "Okay, I know something's up, what's going on here?"

Parker blinks and presses her lips together. "We were hoping you'd come save us," she says real quick, looking straight into his eyes in a way that feels more manipulative than anything else, and Hardison only has time to register the edge of the table against his lower back before Parker's hands are climbing all over his chest, underneath his t-shirt, and she's kissing him.

What the fuck.

Parker breaks away and says, "You've been really good to us lately," and he's about to ask who 'us' is when Eliot walks in, locks the door behind him and ambushes him in a manner similar to Parker.

"So," Eliot says, glancing at Parker, "thanks. And stuff." And then he grips the waistband of Parker's jeans and pulls her closer while he keeps kissing Hardison, and Parker angles her head along Hardison's neck to suck on his collarbone, and he's willing to let go of the fact that they may be aliens in disguise if they keep touching him like this. 

Hardison's willing to forget about a lot of things for a while if he's getting an orgasm out of the deal, and by the way Parker's pushed his hand inside her open jeans and Eliot's kneeling down and working on Hardison's fly, Hardison thinks it's safe to assume that that's where this is going.

Eliot answers his unasked question by yanking Hardison's jeans down and drawing the head of his dick into his mouth. Hardison can almost literally feel his blood run downwards to the source of that sweet, sweet suction, and he almost forgets Parker's letting him—_encouraging_ him to—push his fingers inside of her, except even that becomes a nonissue when Parker's hips jerk and he can feel her all slick and hot and ready and oh god, Eliot's _groaning_ around his dick, and for a moment there Hardison's pretty sure he just leapt through time ahead to Christmas. Sexy Christmas. 

Parker kisses him again, pressing his hand between their bodies, and just when Hardison's about to see if this whole you-can-have-sex-with-us thing includes tugging at Eliot's hair, Parker says, "This isn't working for me. Lie down."

"Where?"

"Where do you think," Eliot says, looking at Hardison like he's lost his mind. The effect is greatly lessened by the swell and spit-slickness of his mouth, and its proximity to Hardison's dick.

They work it out, though, and a few bruises later Hardison's on his back on the table with Parker holding the base of his cock and lowering herself on it, biting her lip, and Eliot sitting on the edge of the table near Hardison's hips, feet on a chair, bent over and kissing him and making a lot of noise as he undoes and gets rid of his belt.

Hardison takes the hint and curls his fingers around Eliot, grinning smugly at the way he groans and his dick hardens in Hardison's hand, and god, they don't feel like strangers. They feel like they know Hardison better than he knows himself. 

   
*  
 

6.

Tara's lounging around on the couch with a glass of wine when they get back to Nate's apartment to report, and it just seems appropriate to thank her for her advice.

"You were totally right," Parker says, and Tara grins and high-fives her.

Eliot looks from her to Tara and back again. Parker wonders if there's something wrong with his eyes.

"You've gotta be kidding me," he says. 


End file.
